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Jurassic Web

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the set-the-wayback-machine dept.

theodp writes "It wasn't so long ago, but Slate's Farhad Manjoo notes that The Internet of 1996 is almost unrecognizable compared with what we have today. No YouTube, Digg, Huffington Post, Gawker, Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Wikipedia. In 1996, Americans with Internet access spent fewer than 30 minutes a month surfing the Web and were paying for the Internet by the hour. Today, Nielsen says we spend about 27 hours a month online (present company excepted, of course!)." I thought in 1996 all we did was idle in IRC channels while we wrote code in other terminals.

4 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. 1996 nothing... by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I remember seeing Mosaic in 1992 or 1993 and saying, "this will never replace Gopher."

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    1. Re:1996 nothing... by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You remember the MIT coffee pot cam? Some joker who worked upstairs put a digital camera next to the coffee pot so he could point his browser at the link and see if there was any coffee made, without having to get his ass up and walk to the pot.

      Now that was entertainment. I knew people who didn't even go to MIT who checked that thing ALL THE TIME.

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  2. When I think about the internet in 1996 by mandark1967 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't think about what was there, then, I think about what we have lost since then.

    So many sites that were popular in that timeframe are no longer around. Internet Archives doesn't capture all those funny, cool sites that used to be there and are, sadly, no longer around.

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  3. Re:IRC channels? by epiphani · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "I thought in 1996 all we did was idle in IRC channels while we wrote code in other terminals."

    Yet another person who does not know he can find porn on the net.

    Yet another person who is apparently unfamiliar with DCC. Why do you think we idled on IRC to begin with? It sure as hell wasn't for the intelligent conversation.

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